After last week’s non-episode, the Weekly Space Hangout roared back to life. We had big news on the Government Shutdown, the Earth flyby from the Juno spacecraft, and a big update on Comet ISON.

We also had a special guest, author and journalist Lee Billings, who was here to talk about his newest book, Five Billion Years of Solitude. Lee talked about his work on the book, and the state of extrasolar planet research in general.

We broadcast the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday afternoon as a Google+ Hangout on Air. You can watch us live on Google+, or on YouTube, or right here on Universe Today. We start at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern.